Nothing is impossible for an engineer

He's a wanker, but an entertaining one. He's a sort of Anti-Jonathon Ross.

It's sexist by way of it being a bit laddish, and it really could do with a bit of (oo, almost said "female touch")... I'm not sure what it needs actually. A female presenter, yes, as long as she's a petrol head and isn't given all the 'namby pamby' eco-stuff to cover - now that would be irritating.

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jozafeen.livejournal.com

I don't think it's sexist at all and the current three presenters are perfect I reckon. Best tv of the week as far as I'm concerned.

I may be odd though as I think Jezzer is quite totty because he makes me laugh.

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He's certainly entertaining, and yes I do like the team - I'm glad Quentin wossisname isn't on it, the smarmy giot.

Why don't you try to get on it?

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vin_petrol

I'm glad Quentin wossisname isn't on it, the smarmy giot.

Very smarmy, but as he was there as 'second hand car salesman', this seemed entirely reasonable casting. :-)

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And his redeeming feature is a fondness for old Jensens.

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jozafeen.livejournal.com

because I'm not totty and I swear too much for pre-watershed telly!

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Ooh, you ar etotty, and I love it when you talk dirty!

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God quentin really really was fucking unbearable wasn't he. He was every bit as much of a wanker as clarkson and posh and not funny.

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Oddly enough my mum would only ever tolerate me and/or my dad watching Top Gear because William Woollard used to be on it, then Quentin Willson was ;)

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ladyserpentine.livejournal.com

*shakes head*

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vin_petrol

He's a wanker, but an entertaining one. He's a sort of Anti-Jonathon Ross.

He reminds me a Usenet Trolls - popping up with daft viewpoints and getting *some* people really hot and bothered. I find him kinda entertaining and not objectionable at all.

A female presenter, yes, as long as she's a petrol head and isn't given all the 'namby pamby' eco-stuff to cover

Another Vicky Butler-Henderson then? Or was she too posh for you? :-)

She liked the Honda Civic Type-R, so I've always had a soft spot for her.

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She was alright, but..... I don't know. Was that the review of the Type-R when it beat the 2000 round the track? =:-)

I like Clarkson on the subject of Spanish trawlers. And I like his mum too.

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vin_petrol

Was that the review of the Type-R when it beat the 2000 round the track? =:-)

I remember that, but I think that was on Fifth Gear, and she wasn't part of that particular segment. She reviewed the Type-R a few months before it became available. I think I still have the review on video tape somewhere. The pitch was something like "Honda are annoyed they have a reputation for making cars for old people - RIGHT, THIS'LL SHOW YOU!" :-)

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Honda are annoyed they have a reputation for making cars for old people

They do? What about the CRX? Not that noncy thing with the roof - the earlier ones, squat, with the V-TEC engine?

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vin_petrol

They do?

Apparently. I'm not hugely aware of this meme myself, but then I ride a Honda motorbike which comes with a completely different set of issues (basically: Honda make fantastic but, well, *boringly* fantastic bikes). Top Gear illustrated this idea by showing old people playing bowls with the song Grandad played over the top. Some work colleagues reckon I've got an "old man's car". They always seem to turn down the offer of a ride in it though :-)

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I have the opposite problem - everyone thinks mine's a sports car when really it's just for hairdressers. I'm actually annoyed by this, and I'm a bit confused about what that might say about me as a person. Hmmm.

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Another Vicky Butler-Henderson then?

Oooh... She's such a babe... I go weak at the knees at the very thought of her.

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VB-H also won a Maserati one-make race at Silverstone at the GP the other week - terrible trident trophy that she won, she had it on Speed Sunday last week!

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VB-H spends most of her time doing racing coverage these days, she was at Croft this weekend doing ITV's BTCC coverage. Her brother Charlie has scraped together the money to run in one of GA's Astras, too, but it was a right old shed and he did rather badly!)

Kate Humble used to be ok on Top Gear - one of the best features of the "old" regime on TG was Vicky B-H giving Kate a demonstration of how to drive a sports car.

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sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com

Wanker but amusing.

Besides, don't almost all men wank?

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vin_petrol

don't almost all men wank?

Shhhhhhh! It's a secret :-)

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Almost all, yes. There's a small number who have no hands due to industrial accidents and whatnot.

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They could hump the mattress.....

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vin_petrol

They could hump the mattress.....

This reminds me of someone I once knew. He had cut a hole in his foam pillow so her could, er, pleasure himself with it. Apparently "if feels just like a woman." *cough*

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And if you use the foam from the back of a brillo padit reminds you to do the washing up too! I mean how much more realistic can you get?!

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I am assuming this is a gentleman who had, errrm, "limited" knowledge of ladies' front bottoms and related areas?

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vin_petrol

You assume correctly.

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Were I to suggest H*w R*g*rs how far wrong would I be? ;)

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vin_petrol

Well, him saying that wouldn't surprise me, but it's actually no one you know... Fortunately!

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Or anything, really, I mean I always check that people I stand next to on the tube have hands.

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ladyserpentine.livejournal.com

Vin, you wanker!

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vin_petrol

*pout* not Poll Bitching for you again, then :-)

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sarcaustik.livejournal.com

*Claps* Glad someone has stepped into the gap I left when I vowed to be nice! (And you can stop laughing as well!)

Top Gear would have scored lower with me had I not watched the Sport Relief car skittles thing, which was a masterstroke of genius and I want to play, although obviously if I did I would insist that the cars still had people in them. One of them would almost certainly be Jeremy Clarkson.

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vin_petrol

Well,

ladyserpentine, 24 hours later it looks like we have a set of results. I'm afraid it doesn't support your hopeful assertion that girls don't like Top Gear. The variance between the sexes is minimal - and note that

nollipop rather naughtily voted as a boy too, and gave Top Gear 1 :-)

So what did

grega think of the results? :-) Maybe you could switch boyfriends to one of the males who hates it too?

Oooh, fancy doing a poll about Dirty Dancing then? "Poo" or "fantastic"?

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Wanker is too mild a word... if the wankers of the world ever gathered round and elected a sub under wanker to be the lowliest and most wankiest of them and to be bullied and snubbed and exiled from the wanker club as too wanky to play with them then Jeremy Clarkson would be too much of a wanker to put on the nomination form.

How, can someone so pig ignorant of motoring and even the basics of physics present a motoring show.

I watch it though. I mean you've got to admit, he's bloody funny. Admittedly, had it been my telly, I'd have thrown a brick through it when he was "reading" the govt transport policy. (Or quoting one scientist he could find saying cars don't cause global warming.)

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vin_petrol

Say what you think

steer! :-)

I watch it though. I mean you've got to admit, he's bloody funny.

Definitely. I think it's all an act. If you treat Top Gear as 'entertainment with cars' I think it's great. Given the 'dumbing down' of the BBC this is hardly surprising. I mean, have you actually watched Horizon in the last couple of years? *shudder*

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Oh, I watch and enjoy top gear -- I just wish that Clarkson was tortured slowly to death. Possibly by having him run over very slowly by an environmentally friendly smart car laden with brown rice.

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Does it still exist? - for all that the BBC promote it it may as well not.

I pretty much stopped looking out for Horizon after the last few series of it I watched were generally "shock! horror! GM organisms! Things that give you cancer! Babies with AIDS!" stuff - lifestyle/medical sensationalism rather than "hard science".

I can still remember many classic Horizons to this day - "Red Star In Orbit", "Spaceships Of The Mind", "When The Chips Are Down", stuff like that. Arguably the kind of stuff that inspired me to look at a scientific/engineering education. It's hard to imagine anyone being inspired by the sensationalist pap that comes out under that banner these days.

(And what happened to Equinox on 4? - that used to occasionally scale the heights of excellence that classic Horizon used to reach....)

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vin_petrol

Does it still exist?

I seem to recall watching it towards the end of last year. It was on on Thursday nights at 21:00. For historical reasons, I'm quite often home alone on Thursday nights, so it always calls out to me from the listings. Sadly, it's living on past glories.

I can still remember many classic Horizons to this day - "Red Star In Orbit", "Spaceships Of The Mind", "When The Chips Are Down"

I *think* I have a copy of "Red Star In Orbit" on video tape - I seem to recall it had multiple parts. Or was that the Feynmen one? ("No Ordinary Genius")

Now, I remember something called "Spaceships Of The Mind" but wasn't that a multi-part TV series in the late 70s? I have the book, which I acquired in Whitby earlier this year.

(And what happened to Equinox on 4? - that used to occasionally scale the heights of excellence that classic Horizon used to reach....)

True. They did a cracking one on black holes. A little overblown, but not too bad.

I have Sky Digital so I get vast swathes of documentary channels now. There's a lovely 'relaxed' quality to them. They're not competing in the schedules with reality TV, and treat their subject matter slowly and intelligently. You can see programs here you would *never* see on Terrestrial TV, simply because they spend "too long" on the same thing. I recall watching a multi-part series on "Secret Weapons of the Lufwaffe", with lovely archive footage of things like wire-guided air launched missiles the Germans were working on. Far too much of a minority interest for the BBC.

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Red Star in Orbit was a three-parter based on Oberg's book, I think. There were at least two Feynman ones that I remember, but whether they were shown together or not I don't know. I thought Spaceships of the Mind was 2-3 part Horizon that was later shown under its own title...

Oddly enough the last truly great Horizon I recall was about supermassive black holes, about 4 years ago.

Best two "Equinoxes" were two Patrick Uden ones about motor racing - "Gentlemen. Lift Your Skirts" about the late 70s/early 80s ground effect era in F1, and one whose title I can't remember about Cosworth trying to come up with a turbocharged replacement for the DFV in the mid-80s. Both shows got the technology spot on, explained it well, and let interesting talking heads do the talking (there were rather a lot of Keith Duckworth rants in the second one ;))

Oddly enough I think Uden was the producer for a lot of the classic hard science/engineering Horizons too.

These days I have UK History and the Discovery Channel, both of which show quite a lot of semi-popular science/technology stuff.

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I preferred Top Gear when it was more of a motoring show and less of a "lads' mag".

Clarkson revels in the "man you love to hate" role, but I am told by several people who've met him that he is a really top bloke. He acts the wanker on TG, but that's clearly part of the act; some of his other presenting work has been excellent - and he's a good writer.

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vin_petrol

I preferred Top Gear when it was more of a motoring show and less of a "lads' mag".

Interesting. I suppose I've hardly ever watched it as a 'motoring show'. I'm quite happy with the more 'deranged entertainment with cars' ideal it seems to fulfill.

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angelic-angie.livejournal.com

I miss the old series, alright Quentin was a smarmy git, but on occasion you got Steve giving the motorbike reviews, always good. Now on the new series there is no mention whatsoever of our 2 wheeled friends and I miss it. *sobs*

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vin_petrol

Now on the new series there is no mention whatsoever of our 2 wheeled friends and I miss it. *sobs*

I used to watch those, but since I bought my VFR750 I have achieved motorcycle nirvana, so I no longer need to see reviews of lesser machines :-)

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